How to Kidnap a Dragon's Rider (Guide for Dragons)
by inkedinserendipity
Summary: With age and status come responsibilities, and as the Pride of Berk and heir to the tribe, Hiccup is saddled with far too many of the accursed things. But there's one being whose annoyance is on par with his own - Toothless. And Toothless will go flying with his rider before the day closes, "responsibilities" or no. One-shot.


Toothless was startled from his lazy afternoon nap by pounding footfalls approaching the forge. He perked up instantly, sweeping an alert gaze across the clearing, but it was only a female Viking he barely recognized. From high on the forge's roof, Toothless raised his head to glare at her.

_Go away_, Toothless snarled at the human. _Hiccup's busy. _

The Viking, of course, didn't respond. Toothless flicked his tail irritatedly at the Viking that continued to approach the forge. He doubted the woman even realized he was there. Humans had a terrible tendency to never look above them. For a moment, he debated leaping from the rafters and frightening the female, but he decided against it. Toothless had ensconced himself in the relative refuge of the roof for a reason, and it was the human's fault if she got herself burnt.

"Hiccup?" the woman called into the forge, forgetting to knock on the wood. "Are ye in there?"

Something clattered to the ground. Toothless hissed angrily but didn't move to evict the woman, as Hiccup hadn't yelped in pain yet. "Hello?" his human called faintly from the depths of the forge. Toothless could visualize Hiccup removing his mask to look at the female. He snorted irritably and lowered his head back onto his paws in a facsimile of sleep.

"I'm here about Maggie," the woman told him without pause.

"Oh! Yes!" Hiccup exclaimed, voice growing louder as he moved closer to the forge's entrance. "I'll be over in an hour to see."

"She's been attending classes and everything," the mother told him effusively.

"So I've heard," Hiccup replied diplomatically. "See you in an hour?"

"I may not be able to go, got to get something fixed up, so we'll have to send Pinesnort with you instead, would that be all right?"

"That's fine," he acceded. "Now-"

The woman hardly heard him. "Maggie's so excited to talk to you, you wouldn't believe-"

"-oh dear Odin-" Toothless heard Hiccup mutter quietly to himself, and smirked.

"-so as fast as you can come!"

"Yes!" Hiccup inserted at the woman's next breath. "I will be there in an hour. I have to work for that hour, though, okay?"

"Thank you," the woman said profusely, finally taking the not-so-subtle hints he was dropping like Gronckle lava. "And-"

"No problem. Goodbye," Hiccup cut her off loudly. Toothless could tell from Hiccup's approaching tone and nuances that he was ushering the woman out of the forge. _Serves her right, _Toothless grumbled to himself without cracking open an eyelid.

Her footsteps neared the exit, and Toothless decided that _now_ he would scare her, lowering his eyes toward the forge's entrance. Heaven forbid the island of Berk forget the wrath of a moping Night Fury.

As the woman turned toward the village center, Toothless let his tail fall over the entrance, swinging it abruptly in front of her face. She yelped and batted at the tailfin, instinctively raising her hand to protect her face. Toothless smirked. _That hand won't do you much good, human._

The woman followed the tail up to the Night Fury balancing adeptly on the forge's support beams, the frown dropping off her face, and smiled widely. "Hello, Toothless!" she greeted.

Toothless grumbled acidly at her chipper tone. _Go away, human._

Thankfully, the human complied, striding through the village center back to her house. Below him, Hiccup materialized, a playfully chiding expression manifesting on his face. "What was that for?" he asked, craning his neck to catch Toothless's expression. He absently dusted his blackened hands on his overall as he waited for a response.

_She was bothering you, _Toothless grunted. He didn't twitch a single other muscle.

"Aww, are you pouting?" Hiccup grinned, knowing that his dragon couldn't respond either way.

Well, he sort of could. Night Furies had expressive faces and an impressive vocal range. Toothless took all of this potential and bundled it into a defiant huff.

Hiccup chuckled at his irritated dragon, tugging on the tail. "I'm sorry we couldn't go flying yesterday, bud. I had a lot of work to do."

Toothless reared up, indignant, and glared at his human. _I was waiting all day for you,_ he whined, ignoring the fact that Hiccup couldn't understand his words. _And besides that. It's been three days._

Hiccup had never been able to understand his words. And as much as they communicated without them – more than enough to cement a bond that would last both of their lifetimes – there were still things Toothless wanted to _say_ to Hiccup, things he couldn't verbalize without Norse.

It irritated him that the villagers that passed through Berk could talk to Hiccup as much as they pleased and had no idea of their gift, though he'd never show his annoyance. Well, he'd never show it overtly; he could grump and grumble at them as much as they liked, and each human, including Hiccup, would pass it off as typical flight-deprived dragon.

It _was_ uncanny, though, the way Hiccup almost understood what he was saying. "How sweet, you're still waiting for me up there. Guess I'd better hurry up then, huh."

Shaking his head to himself and chuckling insufferably, Hiccup tugged one last time on Toothless's tailfin and headed inside, disregarding the sudden flurry of activity Toothless found necessary to maintain his position on the roof. Toothless hissed at his retreating rider, shifting around to wedge himself on the roof once more. _Not funny,_ Toothless growled, batting at the smile that threatened to show its traitorous face.

A few hours later, Toothless caught the sound of rustling as Hiccup untied his apron with deft hands and returned it to the rack. "All right, bud," he spoke to the open air. To anyone else, it would have looked like Hiccup was speaking to himself, but to the villagers of Berk they knew his dragon (with remarkably keen hearing) would be nearby. "Time to go visit Maggie, eh?"

Toothless was feigning sleep by the time Hiccup emerged from the forge. From behind squeezed eyelids he could sense Hiccup looking sideways at his apparently sleeping form. Toothless snuggled tighter into his spot on the roof, squinting through one deceivingly closed eyelid at Hiccup.

Hiccup pretended to be fooled by Toothless's act for a few seconds, sighing gustily at Toothless's unmoving form before half-turning to go to Maggie's house.

That was entirely unacceptable behavior from his rider. Toothless "woke up" abruptly and yelped a quick _hey, where do you think you're going?_ at Hiccup's half-turned back. But Hiccup didn't respond. He was ignoring him! So Toothless dislodged himself from the rafters, and with a great groundward bound, tackled Hiccup mercilessly into the dirt.

Hiccup groaned as he was suddenly pinned by more than a thousand pounds of peeved dragon. "Hey, hey, hey!" Hiccup protested, batting away Toothless's incoming tongue. "You were _sleeping!_"

_You know very well I wasn't sleeping,_ Toothless huffed, exhaling his foul-smelling breath on the human pinned below him. Toothless chuckled self-satisfiedly as Hiccup shook his head vigorously to dispel the fishy breath.

"C'mon, let me up." Hiccup prodded at the forelegs that held his torso in place, choking slightly on the fouled air. Toothless was having none of that. He hopped in the air, folded his forelegs neatly underneath his head, and plopped his entire upper body on Hiccup's chest.

Hiccup grunted at the sudden impact (and possibly in irritation at having his arms pinned). "Oh come on."

Toothless snorted at him, and once again, pretended to fall asleep.

"Oh no. Oh no you don't." Hiccup wiggled ferociously, trying to extricate himself from his dragon. Toothless let him struggle uselessly for a few minutes. He feigned a large yawn and settled down into a more comfortable position on his human. _Say you're sorry_, he trilled.

"Toothless, bud, I have to be somewhere. In like five minutes ago."

_You should have left earlier._

"Oh come on," Hiccup sighed again, resigning himself to a nice long siesta on the earth.

Then, from somewhere to Toothless's left, a voice called "Have a nice nap, Hiccup!"

It was Astrid, Toothless was sure. He snorted his approval at her teasing. She was a good match for his human, he decided for the sixteenth time.

_Maybe if she asks nicely I'll let you up._

"Have fun!" she called instead of helping, snickering and pointedly walking away.

"Astrid, help me up!" Hiccup wailed.

"Nah, I'm all right. I'm going for a ride on Stormfly instead."

Toothless could hear the smirk in her voice and trilled a greeting at the Deadly Nadder as she swooped overhead, opening his eyes to see the other dragon's underside. _Have a nice flight!_

_Thank you, darkscale,_ the Nadder replied, hardly concealing a laugh herself. _Do be sure not to crush your rider, though. I think mine's attached to him._

Toothless glanced at his human. Hiccup was yelling, betrayed, as Astrid cackled, circling tauntingly around the human-dragon duo. He shrugged and grinned, revealing his gums to the sky. _Eventually._

At this, Stormfly barked a dragon-laugh and shot off away from the village, lifting into a huge lap around the island.

_Are we going flying now?_ Toothless pointedly asked his human, jabbing at Hiccup's cheekbone with one tailfin.

Hiccup returned the halfhearted glare. "Toothless, geroff – we can't go flying yet. I have to go talk to someone first. I'm going to be late, Toothless! I have responsibilities."

_None so important as me._

Hiccup continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Important responsibilities. Leaderly…things."

Toothless didn't deign to budge. He stared, unimpressed, at his rider.

Below him, Hiccup sighed an exaggerated breath. "Look, once I'm done we can go flying, all right?"

_Not good enough. You have to make up for yesterday, too._

"I'll even get you some mackerel, all right?" Hiccup added, sensing his dragon's weakness and tackling it with all the enthusiasm his voice could muster.

Toothless squinted down at his rider, gauging Hiccup's truthfulness, then raised off Hiccup and backed away. But not without happily slobbering all over his face, teeth retracted and tongue the length of Hiccup's forearm. Hiccup wasn't getting off that easy.

"Toothless!" Hiccup shrieked. He mopped some of the saliva off his nose, sending it splattering toward the ground. "I have to look _dignified _for this!"

_You never look dignified._

Hiccup wiped off the last bit of slobber that he could access. Stretching his cramped muscles and glaring at his best friend, he set off toward Maggie's house silently.

Toothless responded to the silent treatment with one of his own, prancing along as if he was walking a half-step ahead of Hiccup, as if he were leading Hiccup instead of the other way around. He pretended not to hear Hiccup containing a laugh at Toothless's antics.

_Laugh all you want, human,_ he growled, but it was gentler than his earlier annoyance on the roof, softened by his "revenge."

Still wiping the last vestiges of merriment off his face, Hiccup knocked on the rickety door, still wiping slick dragon saliva off his arms. Toothless sniffed at the house that didn't smell like Haddock, coiled his back legs, and made himself at home on their roof.

"Get down!" Hiccup cried, scandalized. He glowered reproachfully at the dragon as if to summon him earthward with a mere glance. Toothless shrugged his shoulders, clumsily imitating Hiccup's own movements. "You can't just – oh hello Maggie!" Hiccup transitioned awkwardly between yelling toward her roof and greeting the young Viking, pretending he hadn't been chastising an unruly Night Fury.

The small child in the doorway bounced, double braids swaying precariously on her head. "Hi Hiccup! Hi, how are you doing? You've gotten taller!"

Hiccup crouched down to talk to her at eye-level. "So have you!"

The girl's face split into a beaming grin. "I want a dragon, Hiccup! I want a dragon! Mom says I'm big enough now!"

Hiccup laughed. "Remember, Maggie, you can't _get_ a dragon. They choose you just as much as you choose them."

"I know," Maggie said, poorly concealing an eye-roll but still hopping excitedly in the doorway. "But I want a Terror! One of them will definitely choose me!"

Hiccup and Toothless both snorted at that one. "Well, we'll see once we get there."

Pinesnort poked his head around a column, peering at the door's threshold. His face softened when he saw Hiccup. "Welcome," the large man grunted. Then, turning to the interior of his house, "Matilda!"

"Oh, is he here already?"

Hiccup winced. Technically, he was late, but he didn't need to remind them of that.

Matilda appeared over her husband's shoulder. Maggie continued to ramble from around Hiccup's waist about the different types of dragons. Fishlegs had started a class on dragons for the small ones – it had been Astrid's idea, and Fishlegs had instantly adopted the job as his own. Going by Maggie's spurts of information about Gronckles and Nadders and Nightmares, he suspected she'd been attending Fishlegs' classes, and attentively too.

"Hey, Matilda."

"Welcome, Hiccup!" the Viking called from over her burly husband's shoulder, never mind that she had a girth to match his own. "I've made some bark tea, would you like some?"

Pinesnort widened his eyes at Hiccup, shaking his head minutely. Hiccup transitioned from nodding to shaking his head mid-heartbeat. "Um, no thank you. Maybe some other time?"

Matilda didn't miss a beat. "Well, go on then." With a quick grin, she ducked under the doorframe (privately Hiccup thought the house was really too small for the large Viking parents) and disappeared from sight.

Hiccup nodded at Pinesnort and backed out of the door. Maggie followed him excitedly, not once pausing for breath in relating her vast stores of dragon knowledge (most of which Hiccup himself had given to Fishlegs to tell the children). She was completely oblivious to the Night Fury who slunk down their walls to join them, but her father was not, and stiffened. He instinctively reached for a well-worn hammer before visibly quelling his fighting instinct.

When the three Vikings plus one dragon reached the Training Ring, Toothless stole away from his rider to sulk in the shadows. Hiccup pointedly ignored him, instead leading Maggie in a safe circuit around the crowd of dragons and riders training and relaxing there. He indicated the wide variety of dragons, gave her a few pointers about each type, and generally let her decide which type she liked best. One particularly friendly Nadder convinced his rider to let the girl pet him, and Maggie did so with abandon. After a few minutes, the Nadder's rider – a man named Trife – began to eagerly teach the young girl about all the benefits of bonding with a Nadder.

Hiccup smiled and left Trife to his instructions, loping comfortably through the scattered dragons. Pinesnort had lingered in the background, still wary of the beasts who'd destroyed his home multiple times. But Hiccup didn't let this discourage him. Even after four years, some of the villagers were (understandably) reluctant to approach dragons, though Hiccup remained optimistic. He was whittling their numbers down, one by one.

"All right?" he asked the man discreetly.

Pinesnort nodded, but the strained expression on his face gave him away.

"Want to go?" he offered, watching the man observe Maggie interact with Spinesniper.

"No," he said, face resolving itself to granite. "I need to watch Maggie."

Hiccup looked to where Trifle was showing Maggie all of Spinesniper's favorite scale-rubbing spots, scratching enthusiastically by the Nadder's wing-joint, and sighed. Maggie was in no real danger, but it eased the parent's mind, so Hiccup let it slide.

Maggie came bouncing toward Hiccup a moment later as Trife watched her go with a small smile. "Nadder!" was her first intelligible word. "Nadders are my fav-orites!"

Pinesnort very obviously did not stiffen. Hiccup chortled at her enthusiasm. "You know, Stormfly laid a clutch of dragon eggs a few moons ago. If you're good, I could ask her to let you take a look."

Hiccup kept a keen eye on Pinesnort's reaction, ready to rescind the offer if the father protested, but Pinesnort remained silent as ever.

Though that was pretty much typical of Pinesnort. "Is that all right?" he asked the man.

Pinesnort looked from the Nadder to his daughter and back. After a long, long moment, he jerked his head in an affirmative. The girl squealed and fastened her short arms around Hiccup's flesh leg. "Thank you!"

"Remember," he said, ruffling the girl's messy braids, "I'll be asking your parents how you've behaved."

Maggie nodded eagerly and latched onto her father's legs next, burying her face in his hip. "Thank you, daddy," she said softly.

Pinesnort looked torn. Affection won out in the end, and he hefted his girl easily onto one broad shoulder. "Anything for my little girl," he rumbled.

From the shadows, Toothless perked up, hearing an awaited end to the conversation. He bounded up to Hiccup, huffing impatiently.

Hiccup sighed but scratched at Toothless's shoulder. "Really got a one-track mind, don't you, bud."

From her father's shoulders, Maggie shrieked in delight at the sight of the famous Night Fury and reached grabby hands toward an earfin. Toothless restrained an impatient snarl and butted his rider in the chest. _Come on. My wings are going to shrivel and die before we ever get out of the Ring._

Pinesnort, Hiccup was pleased to see, had held his ground through the sudden appearance of the black dragon. He nodded to Pinesnort. "Your parents will come get me once you're ready. Be good!"

She nodded eagerly, hair bobbing up and down, and waved at him. "You're so tiny," she giggled. Below her, her father nodded once at the boy.

Hiccup mentally shrugged at Pinesnort's obvious reluctance, but there wasn't much else he could do for the man's inhibitions. Instead, he hopped lightly into Toothless's saddle and Toothless dragged him away before he could so much as buckle himself in.

Hiccup flopped down on the sun-warmed rock next to his dragon and poked at Toothless's wing. The duo had found a spire near Berk that looked appealing and landed easily on the delicate surface, scaring off a flock of nesting seagulls with Toothless's powerful roar. Hiccup pulled out his snack of rye bread and lamb meat, seamlessly continuing to nudge his best friend until Toothless relented with a huff and spread his wing over Hiccup's head, allowing him access to his flank.

"Thanks," Hiccup said through a mouthful of bread, making himself comfortable against Toothless's shoulder.

However much Toothless did not appreciate having bread crumbs sprayed on him, he didn't complain. There was no place he'd rather his rider be.

_How was work today?_ he chirped at his rider, nudging Hiccup's calloused hands.

Hiccup looked at the hand Toothless was prodding and added two and two together to get forge. "What, at the forge? Got a lot of new orders," he said, using that hand to wipe off his mouth. "More and more people want saddles."

_What a tragedy._

"It's great. People are really beginning to warm up to the dragons. I'm almost afraid our island will be too small for all the dragons we've got to support!"

_That is the opposite of a problem. _

"Which is actually fantastic. Imagine, four years ago, if someone told me I would be having these problems. I would've thought they'd gone mad."

_You _are_ mad. _

"Suppose that's all my fault," Hiccup conceded, taking another huge bite of his sandwich. Then, through a mouthful of food, "Wouldn't trade it for anything."

Toothless didn't have much to say to that. He purred quiet agreement and repositioned his wing to block the glaring light.

Seconds turned to minutes and whisked away with the falling sun, leaving Hiccup and Toothless to their thoughts.

Hiccup broke the silence with an observation startling similar to Toothless's earlier thoughts.

"I wish I could understand you," Hiccup muttered, almost to himself. He pulled his knees to his chest but smiled at Toothless, who'd swung around to stare at him. "I know you can understand me. I mean. Most people don't _get_ that. They think their dragons can hear them and that's about it. But I _know_ you know what I'm saying."

Toothless continued to stare, flabbergasted, at his obviously psychic human. He desperately wished that he could tell Hiccup that he wanted the same thing, that the gift of tongues would be the best gift he could get. _And I want to talk to you,_ Toothless concurred inaudibly, unheard. _Not just _at_ you. To you._

How he wished he could tell Hiccup that he wasn't alone.

"Ah, no use moping," Hiccup said, shoving the morose off his face, then polished off the last bit of his sandwich with a huge bite. "Wan' oo go 'ack?"

Toothless arched a trusty pair of eyebrows at him in a well-worn expression. _I'm sorry, I couldn't understand you._

Hiccup rolled his eyes at Toothless's expression. "'on't 'e like 'at."

_Chew your food or you'll choke, hatchling,_ Toothless barked.

Hiccup swallowed with a massively overdramatized motion. _There we go._

Toothless stood up and shook out his wings, shaking the crumbs off his side. Hiccup didn't even have the grace to look repentant. _You're a mean rider,_ Toothless informed Hiccup factually, trying in vain to lick the last bit of dislodged bread off his shoulder in a place he couldn't quite reach. Hiccup, the lazy lout that he was, merely ignored his dragon's obvious pain. He had the nerve to laugh!

Toothless was going to need all the mackerel to make up for his wounded pride. All of it.

END

Does Toothless actually get his mackerel? We'll never know.

In any case, this drabble was originally intended to be the start of an epic-multichapter fic in which Hiccup and Toothless do actually learn to communicate, but I decided it stood well on its own. So here it is!

And for the record, Toothless and Hiccup can't actually understand each other. It seems like they do because a. they can read facial expressions, and b. they are ridiculously in tune with one another.


End file.
